MATLAB: Element-Wise Vector Division

Question

I would like to define a new vector based on element-wise scalar division with respect to an existing vector.

With scalar multiplication this works very naturally. For example, something like

vector = [1 x N row vector];
new_vector = K*vector;

automatically creates new_vector, which has the same dimensions as vector and whose elements are the corresponding elements of vector multiplied by K.

My goal is to do something very similar with scalar division. That is, I want to type something like

vector = [1 x N row vector];
new_vector = K/vector;

where new_vector has the same dimensions as vector and each element in new_vector is simply K divided by the corresponding element in vector.

(obviously the above code doesn't work – "matrix dimensions must agree")

I am able to obtain the vector I want manually with a for-loop:

vector = [1 x N row vector];
N = length(vector);
new_vector = zeros(1,N);
for i = 1:1:N
    new_vector(i) = K/vector(i);
end

but I can't imagine that this is the most efficient way to perform this operation!

Can someone please advise?

Answer 1

HI Mark,

new_vector = K./vector;

./ (dot divide) does element-by-element operations.